No March Madness reward for college basketball teams as NCAA won’t release brackets
.jpg "The TCU women’s basketball team hoped to play in March Madness this season.")
The TCU women’s basketball team received another gut punch on Sunday.
The NCAA announced it would not be releasing brackets for the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments this year, days after canceling March Madness amid the coronavirus pandemic.
TCU women’s basketball coach Raegan Pebley hoped the NCAA would at least announce the 64 women’s teams and the 68 men’s team as a way to recognize programs who had terrific regular seasons.
As she said earlier this week, “There’s that date that goes up on a banner somewhere for those teams. It’s a group of seniors that, whenever they come back to campus, they see that date up on the wall and knew that everything that they worked for was recognized through that NCAA bid.”
The NCAA considered that sentiment and providing that closure to teams. Ultimately, though, it sounded better in theory than practicality with many of the conference tournaments canceled.
Teams that win the conference tournament receive an automatic bid into the men’s and women’s basketball field.
“The important work of the basketball committees is to set up competitively-balanced brackets to determine national champions,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said in a statement. “I don’t believe it’s responsible or fair to do that with incomplete seasons — especially for tournaments that unfortunately won’t be played. Therefore there will not be any NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball championship selection shows or tournament brackets released this year.”
Gavitt pointed to 19 men’s and 18 women’s conference tournaments that had yet to be completed. In total, there were 132 men’s games and 81 women’s games that were never played that would have impacted the tournament field.
For a team such as TCU, though, it would have been a lock to make the field as an at-large bid regardless of how the conference tournament went. The Horned Frogs went 22-7 and were the No. 2-seed in the Big 12 tournament.
Pebley understood the decision afterward, saying: “While understandable, it is still disappointing. These are unprecedented times and I realize there is no rule book for it all. I want to believe that the committee is packed with high level thinkers that when armed with research, resources and time can do this.
“It rewards teams and provides closure. While not a perfect bracket, it would have been very close.”
As far as TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati is concerned, he felt the NCAA’s decision made sense even though it’s disappointing for the women’s team.
“I would have loved to see that in the case of our women’s basketball program, but I’m not sure how it could have been applied fairly overall given that there was so much more of the story yet to be told with the conference tournaments just beginning,” Donati said.
TCU players perspective
The news of their season being cut short early has been sobering for the TCU women’s team. They were in Kansas City, preparing to make a run in the Big 12 tournament when they were informed the tournament had been canceled.
Then, on the flight home, the NCAA made the decision to cancel March Madness. So much for TCU reaching its first NCAA Tournament in a decade (2010) and first under Pebley.
“It’s been extremely difficult because a part of me doesn’t want to accept the reality that I already played my last college game with such a special group,” TCU fifth-year senior forward Adeola Akomolafe said. “I really don’t want to believe that all of our hard work and dedication wasn’t rewarded at the end. This was supposeS to be each senior’s first NCAA appearance and it breaks my heart tremendously that we won’t be able to share that experience together.
“On the other hand, I understand how everyone’s health is a priority and even though this is all hard to take in I respect the decisions being made.”
Senior Kianna Ray shared that sentiment.
“This week has been difficult,” she said. “No matter where I am or who I’m with, I’m constantly reminded of everything. I’ve spent a lot of time with my teammates because there’s comfort in knowing the people I’m surrounded with are going through the same thing. If you were a fly on the wall around us, you’d hear that it’s all we can talk about.
“What was supposed to be a five-day stay in Kansas City to compete for a Big 12 championship, something we’d all been longing for for months, was cut to a one-day, game-less stay.
“I couldn’t help but notice the times on Friday, Saturday, and today [Sunday] of when we should have been competing.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2020 at 1:37 PM.
